So how did Birmingham become the Jihadi capital of Britain?

LONDON: The car at the centre of the Westminster terrorist atrocity might have ended its bloody mission at the gates of Parliament, but the vehicle — and the maniac behind the wheel — began the journey more than 100 miles up the M40 . . . in Birmingham. The vehicle was hired from a firm — in Birmingham. The ‘driver’ was staying in a rented flat — in Birmingham. Police with machine guns carried out a series of raids in the aftermath of the attack — in Birmingham. Birmingham. Birmingham. Birmingham. It’s always Birmingham. Under different circumstances, these revelations might be treated as no more than incidental facts in the narrative. After all, the car had to come from somewhere, the perpetrator had to live somewhere. The recent history of Britain’s second city, however, tells us that the Birmingham ‘connection’ is more significant; more than just a coincidence. How can the shocking statistic — namely, that one in 10 convicted Islamic terrorists come from a tiny area of Birmingham in and around the Sparkbrook district — be dismissed as a ‘coincidence?’ These five highly concentrated Muslim council wards, occupying a few square miles, have produced 26 of the country’s 269 known jihadis, according to recent analysis of terrorism in the UK. The evidence is there, in black and white, in the 1,000-page report published earlier this month by security think-tank, the Henry Jackson Society. The overall number of terrorists revealed to have had a Birmingham address down the years is even higher: 39 in total. This figure is more than for the whole of West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester and Lancashire put together.